Bounty

by K. N. Banet

  He frowned as Imani spoke. I wished I could hear what she was saying, but my hearing wasn’t sensitive enough.

  “I believe Sinclair is currently a threat to him, yes,” Cassius said, looking up at me. “Does it matter…Yes, Kaliya is involved. So am I. This is a matter of importance…”

  I sighed, leaning over to let my head hit the counter. Fuck me sideways, she was giving Cassius an attitude. This was my fault.

  “Let me remind you of something very important,” Cassius whispered dangerously. I knew the tone. Something Imani had said upset him and Cassius was hard to upset like this. “Carter was only part of your nest because Kaliya led him there, even though you had failed in your duty to keep rogue vampires in check in Phoenix. It was your mistake that led him to be turned. We entrusted his safety to you, but you know as well as I do, Kaliya and I both like to check in on him. If he voluntarily agreed to help Kaliya, that was his rightful decision, regardless of being in your nest. Find him and protect him like you promised me you would.”

  I watched as he hung up on her and put the phone down in silence.

  “Cassius—” I tried to ask him what she had said, but I didn’t get the chance to finish.

  “I should go to the Tribunal and ask them to revoke your Executioner privileges,” he snapped.

  I winced. Yup, this is it. This is when he loses his ability to hold back the anger I knew he had about Carter being in the line of fire.

  “You wouldn’t—”

  “Carter is a younger vampire, and you abused your friendship with him,” he growled. “And he could get hurt for it. Since she woke up, no one has been able to find him. Mind you, they couldn’t get into his lightproof room. You better hope he’s in there, Kaliya. First, Paden gets tortured and has to close down The Jackalope until this blows over, and now, Carter might be…” Cassius took a deep breath. “Paden, I could ignore. He asks for trouble and lives in a dangerous world, even for supernaturals. He deals in information, knowing the risks. Carter is a different story.”

  I closed my eyes, looking away from Cassius.

  “I didn’t think they would get my phone. It’s normally glued to me. I’m sorry, Cassius.” It was stupid. It was an excuse. It was a mistake I had never made before. It was unforgivable.

  He sighed, shaking his head. “We’ll talk about this later in private,” he said, picking up his phone again. He walked out of the room, leaving me with a confused Raphael and Leith, who shuffled after Cassius a moment later.

  “You’re in trouble,” Raphael said softly, “because you wanted to find me.”

  “And I sent a friend to get the intel I needed. It…it was supposed to be innocent and easy. Carter knows how to defend himself. I just have to hope he doesn’t need to,” I said, refusing to look at the not-human.

  “What would Sinclair do to him?”

  “Torture him for information. Ask to trade him for you. Kill him just to prove a point. Sinclair is capable of anything,” I answered, clenching my hands in fists so hard my nails threatened to break the skin on my palms. Carter knew what had been at risk. He wasn’t a fool, even if he was young, but that didn’t ease my worry. They hadn’t been able to find him yet. He was part of the nest. There’s no way he should have been able to hide from all of them.

  I got up, unwilling to stew any longer, and went to find Cassius. Raphael didn’t need any more information to know how serious this was, and I couldn’t stand sitting there with his scent making my fangs ache constantly. I found Cassius in his office, leaning over and looking severe. He glared at me as I entered the room.

  “Sinclair went to Midnight Reverie. Carter was already there because it was a Saturday night, and he’s always there on a Saturday night. I asked him to just keep an eye on them, maybe listen in. He couldn’t hear anything, so I suggested maybe asking one of Sinclair’s friends to dance. He hit it off with the fae and got an address. That was all. He joked around about why he was doing it, but he knew the score. He even let me know when they were leaving, so I could get out. I didn’t coerce him. If he hadn't wanted to help, I could have tailed Sinclair. I promise you, Carter knows me well enough to know I could have. I had options,” I explained, feeling less upset and more angry. “Carter knows me just as well as you do. Just as well as Paden does. He’s not a fool or an idiot, and I didn’t take advantage of him or manipulate him.”

  “I know,” Cassius said softly. “You just didn’t think about how it could fall back on him.”

  “It’s Sinclair! No, I didn’t think because it was a tiny margin. There were a thousand ways I could have gotten that intel from Sinclair and grabbed Raphael before he could. The likelihood he would have gotten my phone at my house after going after Paden? You really think that was a likely scenario?”

  “If he hadn’t gone after Paden, no,” Cassius said, raising an eyebrow. “But once he went after Paden, you should have known Carter was at risk.”

  “You’re right, but I was too busy running for my life.”

  “I know.”

  “It doesn’t count for anything, but I am sorry.”

  Cassius shook his head a little, looking down at his desk.

  “You…you get obsessed and have blind spots when you’re like that. Tell me, does Raphael have any intel you or Paden would have cared about when this started?”

  “No,” I said sadly. “No, he doesn’t, but at least we’re saving him from being experimented on, right? That has to count for something.”

  “If Sinclair wants a trade, Carter for Raphael, what do you think we should do? It’s the most likely scenario, and if we plan for it now, we won’t be surprised later in the evening. We don’t know what kind of deadline he’ll give us.”

  “He’s playing this very…dangerously,” I said softly. “It’s not like him, is it? He’s normally done everything he can to stay out of real trouble, using others to do his bidding and keeping his hands clean. He tried to kill me last night. That’s not toeing the line like he usually does. That’s blowing right past it.”

  “Yes, which means we need to take into account he’s not going with his regular MO,” Cassius agreed. “Do we fake a trade, then go in for the kill?”

  “No,” I snapped quickly. “We can’t put Raphael at risk like that.”

  “It’s an easy way of getting it done without raising suspicion.”

  “No,” I repeated, my every instinct against the idea. A naga doesn’t send someone who might be a potential mate into the line of fire. It wasn’t done. I couldn’t allow Cassius to do it—not under any circumstance.

  “He would know what’s going on. We wouldn’t be betraying him. Let’s hope he can act and—”

  “Absolutely not,” I hissed across the office, closing the door before walking closer to the desk. “Find another option.”

  “Since we don’t know the location yet or who he might have with him…”

  “Find. Another. Way.” I couldn’t budge on this. Cassius would be handing Raphael to Sinclair over my dead body.

  “Paden was attacked. Knowing them, he probably needed extensive and fast healing before he could warn you they were coming,” Cassius said, glaring at her. “Carter is probably already in their hands; we’re just waiting on Imani to confirm it. Hopefully, Sinclair will get word to us sooner rather than later. This is off the rails, as the humans say. The train has left the tracks. We don’t have many options. Raphael is powerful, and from your description of his powers, he’s damn near unkillable. He will be fine. We’ll move fast enough, they won’t be able to get him into a car.”

  “No,” I repeated.

  “Why were you willing to risk everyone else but not him?” Cassius asked softly. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “A lot,” I answered honestly. “Too much and none of it to do with you.”

  “Kaliya…” he warned. I bit my tongue. Did I tell Cassius? Did I trust him to understand what was at stake?

  He keeps a room here for me, so I can hide if things get too h
ot. He does it even though we both know his uncle hates me, even though he’s moved on from us and is getting married to someone else.

  “He’s…I could mate with him,” I said softly, watching Cassius’s face change from the glare to surprise before landing on concern.

  “Kaliya, are you…?”

  “I don’t want to. I barely know him, but I can’t…I can’t take the risk of him dying, either. Cassius, he has to live, and he has to stay close because…”

  “He might be the only person you ever meet,” he finished. “Oh, this is bad,” he mumbled, falling into his chair. “When did you know?”

  “The moment I saw him. I was professionally curious, then I became personally invested, like that.” I snapped my fingers. “The connection he might have to anything that I’ve been looking into is so obscure, it’s…irrelevant. The moment I saw him, I knew.”

  “One in several billion,” Cassius said. “And he somehow ended up in your city, running from a supernatural problem. Kaliya, you could stop all this right now. You can give him protection under supernatural Law.”

  “I…I need time to think about that,” I replied, finding a seat. “You think I don’t know? I could go to the Tribunal right now and say, ‘Hey, this guy can have kids with me, so he’s off limits.’”

  “Why haven’t you? Why didn’t you do it the first night and declare it to the world, so he had another layer of protection?”

  “Because it gives him more enemies. He would no longer be a strange oddity one company wants for whatever reason. He would be…a naga mate. I’m lucky in my world, Cassius. I know how to kill. I made a name for myself and placed myself around powerful people. But there are four male nagas with human mates, and they just want to be normal families. Their defenses are tested nearly on a weekly basis. Someone is always trying to get to them. Most are low-time poachers, human and supernatural alike. Disgusting, awful people, but sometimes…”

  “Sometimes, it’s something more,” he finished.

  “Exactly. And now, I have this…guy.” I gestured at the door, indicating Raphael. “And he’s running from his own demons, people who have done terrible things to him. If I declare him a mate to the naga, I do two terrible things to him.”

  Cassius had no response, gesturing for me to continue.

  “I give him all my enemies for starters. Then I take away his freedom. I don’t want forever with anyone. It’s a burden I have run from for a century. I don’t want to pop out kids for my kind. The others can breed. I’m more than my womb. But if I declare him a naga mate, he’ll be expected to stay by my side for the rest of his life. Does that seem fair to you? To be bound to a woman who might never want you? Might never think it’s safe? Hell, he might not even find me attractive. I don’t know what’s going on in his mind. It’s happened before. A naga can make the wrong choice when it comes to these things and create a mate bond with someone who is totally wrong for them.” When I was done, I sagged into the chair. “It’s not as simple as you think it is.”

  “You’re right. We’ll work on finding a way to protect him without going to the last resort, but Kaliya, you need to be ready to make that call because something is going to force you to one day.”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  There was silence as we stared at each other until Cassius relaxed and looked over my head toward the door.

  “He’s not a bad guy,” the fae said finally. “You could have found worse.”

  “Wow,” I huffed, shaking my head. “Really? Are you going to invite us to a dinner party with your fiancée next?”

  “I was considering it. Are you really thinking about ignoring the breeding compatibility between you and him?”

  “For as long as I’m able. If I’m forced to acknowledge it, so be it, but I’m never going to force a mate bond with him. Adhar told me to do that, and I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle the old bastard. He’s…”

  “It’s always scared you, the mate bond,” Cassius pointed out. “Was he really so tactless to tell you to just do it and get it over with?”

  “Yeah,” I spat out. “Which is funny because when I was fifteen, he saw how much I hated the parade I had to endure. Did I ever tell you about that?”

  “No, I don’t remember hearing about a parade.”

  “Long story short, when a naga is entering adulthood, he or she is taken in front of all the other eligible nagas to see who they might be able to mate bond with. We’re required to open our mouths so others can see if our fangs drop. It’s pretty humiliating.”

  “Sounds like it. Also sounds like a fae coming out party.”

  “Coming out? Are you all gay now?”

  “No…coming out into society party. Being presented to the royalty of the court, meeting your peers as eligible to marry another member of society.”

  “Ahhhh. That. Yeah. A bit like that. Old, weird, humiliating traditions that refuse to die.”

  “Yes.”

  Leith came in twenty minutes later, and I was almost sad to end the peaceful silence that Cassius and I had found. It was relaxing.

  “Terry is here and…him and Raphael…”

  “We’re coming,” Cassius said, sighing heavily. I was the first out the door, walking fast. As I drew closer to the kitchen, I heard the growling and stomped in.

  “Raphael, leave the werewolf alone. Terry, this is Raphael. He’s a friend of mine. Kind of. Can I call you a friend?” I asked the last question to Raphael.

  “He smells off,” Terry muttered, glaring as he walked around the counter to his side of the kitchen. “A touch of something in his human scent. I don’t like it.”

  “Really? I didn’t catch that. Tell me more.” I sat down innocently and was happy to see everything calming down as Cassius walked in with Leith. “Everything is fine. Terry was just going to tell me about something he caught in Raphael’s scent.”

  “Ah…” Cassius looked between both men, down at Leith, to me, then shook his head slowly. “I know too many ruffians, Leith.”

  “You do know many, Lord Cassius.”

  “It’s not good,” Terry grumbled. “I don’t like his scent here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cassius whispered. “But we’re going to have to live with it for a time. Now, let’s settle down and have something to eat. Terry, you’re the best cook I employ, and I’ve missed your cooking.”

  “Thank you, but you’ll all go eat in the living room.” He pointed at the door, and no one argued, leaving as quickly as possible. As we sat down, Cassius’s phone started ringing again. He answered quickly and looked at me, giving a hard nod.

  “We’re going to get him back, Imani. Don’t worry.” He waved a hand at Leith and motioned for a pen.

  Leith started shuffling around in a drawer of a side table. The moment Cassius had both, he started writing, scribbling down everything Imani was saying. He tore off the top sheet, and it floated across the table toward me. I snatched it out of the air and read it while he continued to write notes before he hung up.

  It’s a trade.

  I sighed. Just as we had discussed. This was probably the most predictable thing that happened since I got back to Phoenix.

  22

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When Cassius hung up the phone, everyone tried to talk at once. Cassius, Leith, and Raphael were trying to get a word in, though I wasn’t sure why.

  “Quiet!” I snapped, bringing silence to the table. “Cassius, you go.”

  All the men looked at me with various levels of annoyance.

  “He’s willing to give back Carter for something—”

  “Me. I’m the one with the bounty,” Raphael cut in. “Let’s do it. I’ve escaped Mygi before. I can do it again. Carter is important to you two, and he shouldn’t have to—”

  “No,” I said evenly. “We’re not trading anyone. We’re not even going to fake a trade. Cassius, tell us the rest.”

  Raphael glared at me, his eyes flashing red. Such an angry,
passionate man. He wanted to play hero, which astounded me. Heroes got killed. Did he really want to go the way of the dodo?

  “He contacted Imani and let her know that he also considered her hostile since her vampire felt so comfortable helping you,” Cassius said, looking straight at me. “You and I already had this discussion.”

  “We did, and I’m not having it a second time.” I would eat the guilt in private from here on out. I didn’t need another public shaming to feel any worse. Right now, I just need to focus on getting Carter back. If I get him back, he can never help me again, and everything will be okay.

  “Of course,” Cassius agreed. “We have…”—he checked his watch—“twenty hours. He wants us ready for the trade at midnight tomorrow. He made sure to say he wanted to get a full day’s sleep before dealing with us. He promised Carter was relatively unharmed and would remain so.”

  “But?” There was always a but.

  “If we’re late, he’s going to carve Carter up slowly until sunrise, then throw him into the sun. We took something he wanted, so he’ll take something we care about. Typical criminal, making his intentions known.”

  Beside Cassius, Leith paled and reached for a seat. Cassius helped him sit down. Raphael was snarling from his chair, and I snapped my fingers at him.

  “None of that. It doesn’t help anyone. Right now, anger helps no one.”

  “Just trade me! I’m not going to sit here and let—”

  “It wouldn’t work,” I said, cutting him off again. “Do you really think we’ll get Carter back if we gave you to Sinclair?”

  “What do you mean?” Cassius asked from the other end of the table. “His MO normally says he wants as little violence in his direct perimeter as he can manage.”

  I hadn’t been expecting to have to give an explanation. I had just been trying to shut Raphael up before the man got himself killed or taken. Cassius was going to make me think it through, though, so I started working it out.